in Nacogdoches

There are moments that cannot be
contained in a cupcake or within
the goo of the too-gooey french
toast. Still, I may one day be
asked to swallow a pill that will
release nanotechnology (like
very tiny robots!) into my blood,
which will allow others to read
my thoughts. And will those
robots be able to tell me what
I should be doing with myself
for the next decade or so? Will
the robots be able to interpret
my wild, screaming mind filled
with monkeys jumping high,
demanding my attention,
pulling me away from a deep
meditation with their annoying
parenthetical murmurings
(did you know that Chimpanzees
may one day in the not-so-distant
future be all but extinct, with the
exception of those in captivity--
I learned this from my chocolate
bar wrapper--and, of course, I only
buy (fair-trade) chocolate to support
endangered species--not to support
the wild monkeys' churning).

Will she finally decide to attend the
Seminary so that she might be
a Hospice chaplain? Will she get a
Master's in Sustainable Management
of Developing Countries? Will she
apprentice with a chocolatier and grow
her own herbs to infuse throughout
her surely wonderful chocolate?
Will she learn to sew (better) and
create trendy (but ecologically friendly)
clothing from garments repurposed
from the Goodwill? Will she undergo
training to become a doula and start
attending births in the wee hours of the
morning? Will she move to Nacogdoches,
Texas (or Fergus Falls, Minnesota
for that matter) and open an antique shop?
Will she ever? Ever? Ever? Write a book?

Only God and, perhaps, the tiny robots
and the monkeys know. And, so far,
they aren't telling. But there are
moments, like this past Sunday out hiking,
where she strangely glimpses both past and
future. And in those moments,
it (the doing) doesn't even matter.
She just lives with gratitude for her family,
for the green trees of the forest (who greet her like Treebeard),
for water, dark chocolate, and gooey french toast.